Mumbai: Section 144 imposed for two days amid Omicron alert

The police on Friday imposed section 144 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) within Mumbai commissionerate limits prohibiting rallies and protest marches involving people and vehicles over the next two days, an official said.

The order, issued by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations), will be in force for 48 hours on Saturday and Sunday, he said.

“It has been issued to prevent danger to human life from the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 as well as a threat to the law and order situation against the backdrop of violence that took place in Amravati, Malegaon and Nanded,” he said.

Violators will be punished under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code and other legal provisions, the ordered stated.

Maharashtra reported seven new cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus on Friday including a three-and-half-year-old girl which took the tally of such infections to 17, the state health department said.

Overall, Maharashtra recorded 695 new coronavirus cases during the day. Three new Omicron cases were found in the state capital Mumbai.

As per the recent report from the National Institute of Virology, seven new Omicron cases have been reported in the state, three from Mumbai and four from the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, the official release said.

The three patients from Mumbai were all male, aged 48, 25 and 37 with recent travel history of Tanzania, the UK and South Africa-Nairobi, respectively, the health department said.

As per the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the traveller who returned from Tanzania was a resident of the densely-populated Dharavi slum area, but he was asymptomatic and isolated before he mingled in the community.

Other four new patients were reported from the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) in the Pune district. They are all contacts of three women who had arrived from Nigeria and were found to have Omicron infection earlier, the release said. Of the seven new patients, four were fully vaccinated, it added.

One patient has received a single dose of the coronavirus vaccine while one patient has not been vaccinated. Another patient is three and a half years old and not eligible for vaccination,” the release said.

Four of the new patients were asymptomatic while the other three have only mild symptoms, it added.

The release said 61,439 international travellers have arrived in the state via Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur airports since December 1. Of these, 9,678 were from ‘at-risk’ countries.

The Mumbai civic body BMC on Friday said the tally of Omicron patients in the city increased to five.

The traveller from Tanzania is a resident of Dharavi. He tested positive for COVID-19 on December 4, has mild symptoms and he had not taken any dose of vaccine against the COVID-19, according to the release. His two close contacts tested negative for viral infection.

The 25-year-old traveller returned from London tested positive for COVID-19 on December 1 and he had taken both doses of the vaccine. He had no symptoms of COVID-19.

The 37-year-old Gujarat resident tested positive to COVID-19 on December 4 after arrival. He was shifted to hospital directly from the airport and he has mild symptoms, though he was fully vaccinated, the BMC said.

Earlier in the day, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had said that five out of seven Omicron patients in the Pune district have now tested negative for the infection.